Refacing hangs brand-new doors and drawer fronts on the carcasses already in your kitchen, while door replacement swaps only the few doors that are damaged or out of style. Both are often paired with cabinet painting so the new and old parts finish in one matching colour.
In East Credit the most common version is replacing the arched cathedral uppers and keeping the square lowers. The second most common is swapping a sink-base door that a slow drip has puffed up, or a thermofoil door that has peeled by the dishwasher.
Start with the boxes. When the carcasses are square, dry and solidly screwed to the wall, cabinet painting on the doors you already own is nearly always the smarter money.
Then look at the doors. Lifting thermofoil, veneer worn through, water-swollen particleboard and panels cracked end to end are beyond a coating. A few of those means spot replacement. A whole kitchen of them means refacing.
Style is the third reason. Many people want the cathedral arch gone. New shaker uppers with painted lowers is often the best fit, and the cathedral door cabinet painting page compares that option with filling the arch.
Here, full-kitchen cabinet painting mostly costs from $2,500 up to $5,500. Refacing generally falls in a $3,000 to $10,000 band, with door material and piece count setting where in that band a kitchen lands.
Tearing out and replacing everything usually costs about $15,000 at the low end and can top $40,000. One replacement door costs a few hundred dollars, and after spraying it looks like every other door in the run. Swapping only the arched uppers lands somewhere between cabinet painting and full refacing, because the lowers keep their own doors. Plan around the number printed on your written quote.
A freshly primed new door next to a thirty-year-old original will stand out unless both get finished together. So the entire run goes through cabinet painting in one session, and every door carries identical primer, identical topcoat, identical coat count and identical sheen.
The door style has to fit in just as much as the colour does. A shaker door in a kitchen full of raised panels looks like a repair, so replacements either match the existing profile or change a whole group, such as all the uppers.
Hinge boring is the detail that changes a quote. Most 1990s East Credit kitchens use concealed European hinges, so new doors are bored to match. Soft-close upgrades done during the same visit are listed under cabinet hardware and soft-close hinges.
When a large share of the doors are replaced, we order unfinished or primed shaker doors and run them through cabinet painting with the face frames. The frames and the new doors then share one sprayed colour and one sheen.
Doors bought pre-finished from a supplier rarely match a sprayed face frame exactly. Cabinet painting the whole run together avoids that mismatch and keeps the kitchen looking like one piece of work.
The boxes in most East Credit kitchens are built well enough to last another thirty years. Tearing them out to install new boxes of similar or lower quality is a poor trade.
Keeping the boxes also keeps the counters, the sink, the plumbing and the backsplash where they are. That is the main reason refacing and cabinet painting cost so much less than a new kitchen.
Hold off on ordering doors until someone has checked the carcasses. We test for square, look for water damage and count the doors that are truly past cabinet painting, then price every option in writing. Call +1 (365) 217-9589, schedule a visit, or browse our other services.
Ensuite vanities, laundry uppers, pantry towers and wall units are primed and topcoated just like the kitchen.
Kitchen cabinet painting gives a tired 1990s kitchen a fresh colour and a tough sprayed coat, and the boxes, countertop and sink never leave the wall. Each door is cleaned, scuffed, primed to suit its wood and sprayed before it is rehung.
See Kitchen Cabinets
Arched cathedral doors can be painted as they are, filled to a square top, or swapped for flat shaker doors while the rest of the kitchen is painted. Cabinet painting on these doors starts with one decision about the curve, and we price every option at the visit.
See Cathedral Doors
Oak cabinet painting needs a stain-blocking primer because oak tannin bleeds brown through water-based products. The open grain also telegraphs through paint unless it is filled level before the topcoats go on.
See Oak Cabinets
Cabinet refinishing removes the old clear coat by sanding or stripping, refreshes the stain tone and locks the colour in under a fresh sprayed clear topcoat. We recommend it instead of paint whenever the grain is the best feature in the room.
See Refinishing
A spray gun breaks the coating into tiny droplets that flow together and level before they set, leaving no brush lines or roller stipple. Cabinet painting applied this way looks much like a finish from a cabinet factory.
See Spray Painting
Shiny factory doors keep paint only when a purpose-made bonding primer goes on first and the surface itself is still firmly attached. Cabinet painting does well on solid melamine and firmly bonded thermofoil, but a vinyl skin that is already lifting is past saving with a coating.
See Thermofoil and Melamine
Light uppers over darker lowers, or a painted perimeter with a contrasting island, are the two-tone layouts people ask for most. A lone island is a full cabinet painting job in its own right and one of the quickest ways to change a room.
See Two-Tone and Islands
Most vanities take one or two days, and no job we do is easier to live around. The doors are sprayed at the shop, the base is sprayed on site, and after cabinet painting the bathroom is back in service fast.
See Bathroom Vanities
Condo and townhouse kitchens are small, usually ten to twenty doors, and the job moves quickly once the building rules are sorted out. Cabinet painting in a shared complex works best when parking, work hours and noise are planned first.
See Condo Kitchens
Pantry cupboards, laundry uppers, mudroom lockers, family room wall units and bookcases receive the primer and sprayed enamel the kitchen does. Since most are fastened in place, their cabinet painting happens on site inside a plastic tent.
See Pantries and Built-Ins
Leftover knob holes are plugged and filled so the new colour hides them completely, and new holes for pulls are bored off a jig so each handle sits level. Tired hinges get swapped during cabinet painting, since the doors are down anyway.
See Hardware and Hinges
Paint chips under store lights are a poor guide, so we spray one of your actual doors in your favourite candidate shade and leave it standing in the room. The shades we are asked for most in cabinet painting right now are warm white, cream, greige, sage and deep green.
See Colour ConsultationWe visit, tally each door and drawer, identify the material and list the whole job on paper. Neither the visit nor the quote costs you anything.
Share any cabinet details you have handy, and we will call to book a time. The form goes through with just a name and a number. To talk it over by phone, call +1 (365) 217-9589.
